Derbyshire CCGs Announce No Change to Rehabilitation Beds Over Winter

The Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) in Derbyshire, who plan, buy and manage health and care services for Derbyshire, have today announced that they will not be making any changes to the number of rehabilitation beds available in community hospitals over the winter period.

Zara Jones, Executive Director for Commissioning Operations at Derbyshire CCGs explained: “The CCGs have been working with partners across health and social care to determine the capacity requirements to support care at home, care homes and community hospital beds post-discharge from an acute hospital stay. There is a clear evidence base that better outcomes for patients are achieved when they are in the most appropriate setting in the community to meet their needs.”

“Our local modelling demonstrates we have too many community hospital beds and more people should be supported in their own homes or in a care home setting with nursing and therapy input as required to meet individual needs. However, we will not reduce the current community hospital bed provision until we have the full range of alternative options in place to support care at home or in care homes. We also recognise the increased demand and pressures our services face over the winter period, therefore we can confirm that we will not reduce bed capacity over the winter period.”

Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust are responsible for operating the community hospitals across Derbyshire and further to the announcement, William Jones, Chief Operating Officer commented; “We have been part of the discussions regarding the configuration of hospital beds and we welcome the announcement from the Derbyshire CCGs today. Our main priority now is to ensure that we have the staffing capacity in place to see us through the challenging winter months and during this time we will continue to work with commissioners as we review our bed base for the future.”